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Very n00b having a steep learning curve, especially since I am not a Windows user either. Reading through the user guides, forums & other places, downloading software etc this is my 4th day on this. I tried LMDE but could not get it to boot from either CD or USB flash drive. I was able to boot Nadia 64 bit so I guess the problem was LDME. New HP Pavilion g7 notebook pc (64) with Windows 8 pre-installed, no software I care about but I have to keep Win8 accessible. I have Boot Security disabled. At the install I had the choice between "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows 8" or Something Else". I chose the "alongside" option and rebooted, -- and it comes up in win8, no option for Mint. I looked at the hard drive with windows disc management, there is now a partition named (F:) and the flash drive, formerly F:, has now been renamed G:.The F: partition says 328.73 GB RAW Healthy (Primary Partition), I think that is what Nadia created since it wasn't there before.

Can I boot somehow from that? Any advice as to the next step I should take?

When you boot, you may have to go into the Bios boot menu, as Windows 8 on my HP boots from an EFI file. On my HP when you get to the very first little prompt while booting I hit ESC, then F9 to select boot options. Then I have to select boot from hard drive from the menu. Yours may be something similar.

I need a dual Win8/Linux system but Mint(14) booted up with no wireless, and on restart Win8 had lost wireless also (worked fine before the Mint install). A Win 'restore' which wiped out everything was the only way to get the wireless back. So now I'm back at the beginning. HP Pavilion g7 Notebook (64 bit) Win8 preinstalled, Ralink RT3290 802 11 bgn Wi Fi Adapter.

I did find in the forums something similar (viewtopic.php?f=53&t=117133 "Can't connect to wireless networks: Ralink 3290, Maya (13)") but I'm trying to install Nadia (14). One of the responses is "a quick test of Mint 14 Nadia shows that everything is working nicely" -- but it's not.

Of course you can - you can go to an internet cafe and download it if you want, but the easiest way would be to download it from windows, copy to a usb key or something like that then copy the folder from the usb key to your home folder and start from step 3.

Internet café? Not within 50 miles. No, the problem is that once I install Mint I have *no* internet connection. For anything. The wireless doesn't work because there is no driver and the driver can't be downloaded because there is no....Yes, I keep reading about all the happy people with their nice Mint install and - I'm not. I'm now reloading Vuze, md5sum, unetbootin and downloading mint again. Then I will put it on the flash drive along with the Ralink 3298 driver. Then I will see if that works, but I'm not very hopeful.(edit)- oh of course that won't work, eh. Linux cannot read the windows formatted flash drive, so I can't retrieve the driver. I don't have a second Linux machine which seems to be a requirement. Why is this so impossible?

bb333 wrote:Turn it back on in the BIOS. It should be a setting. There are function keys on your keyboard to do the same (Fn+wireless icon labeled key).

Thank you, yes I know. That's the total extent of the 'helpful' troubleshooting on windows, 'push the button'. No, the function key does nothing but toggle airplane mode. Wireless gone, bluetooth gone. Did look through the BIOS but no setting for the modem or wireless there. So I "restored" win8 (wipes out everything) and the modem came back. Start over. Reinstall MInt, reboot and, guess what, it only boots into win8.

Thank you for the reference but I cannot use it as I cannot get online to download the Boot Repair program. Apparently there is no driver for my modem but there is no way to install the driver because I cannot get online to download the driver. Catch-22.

upcycler wrote:Thank you for the reference but I cannot use it as I cannot get online to download the Boot Repair program. Apparently there is no driver for my modem but there is no way to install the driver because I cannot get online to download the driver. Catch-22.

Ordinarily, a Linux installation shouldn't affect your ability to use hardware in any other OS on your computer. The Linux installer shouldn't be touching files in the Windows partition. The installer will resize the Windows partition, though, and I suppose it's conceivable that it's doing some damage to the filesystem in the process. A more likely explanation, though, is that the Mint installer is doing something to the boot loader configuration that's interfering with a computer-specific boot loader that's doing some hardware initialization. If the Mint installer removes that hypothetical tool from the boot path, then the OS drivers might not be able to use the hardware.

I can think of a number of possible solutions, but I can't be sure which of them will work, and they're all rather risky and/or tedious. The Boot Repair tool, mentioned earlier, is the solution that's most likely to get Mint up and running quickly, but it probably won't get the network functioning in Windows. For that, you'll probably have to either start again with a fresh Windows installation but get more data on its boot path or try to figure out what that boot path is based on the files that are present in your current ESP and/or other boot partitions.

If you want to start fresh, do so and then boot a Linux emergency system in EFI mode and type "sudo efibootmgr -v" in Linux. (You may need to do a "sudo apt-get install efibootmgr" to get this to work.) Post the results here and don't proceed with Mint re-installation until you get the efibootmgr output interpreted.

If you want to try to repair what you've got now without re-installing Windows, try typing "sudo parted -l" in Linux and look for any FAT partitions. Mount each one in turn and search them all for files with names that end in .efi, as in:

This example searches /mnt for such files. Those files are candidate boot loader files. Also, do a "sudo efibootmgr -v" to find out how the boot loaders are currently configured. With any luck, knowledge of the current boot loader configuration and of what boot loaders are available will suggest a way to reconfigure the system to get it working correctly.

Yet another option is to give up on a dual-boot configuration and run one OS or the other in a virtualized environment (using VirtualBox, QEMU, VMWare, etc.).

Yes, thank you, I found those, but with no internet access when I am in Linux, how would I download the needed driver? I have no access to another Linux machine (if I did I wouldn't be struggling with this!) For the same reason, no access to the internet, I cannot download the boot repair software either.

Thank you for the link to Fedora. It has the driver for the Ralink RT3290. I see on their boards that probably a dual boot with Win8 probably won't work there either. Also this guy says SuSe has the Ralink RT3290 driver - http://www.zdnet.com/hp-pavilion-dm1-43 ... 000008029/But he removed Win8. My problem is that I cannot (as far as I can tell) remove and reinstall Win8 since it came "preloaded" on the system. Also I'm afraid to do any disc formatting for fear of damaging the preloaded Win8 which would require me to purchase a new copy-tithing twice to Microsoft for the same item is just too irritating.

Something very odd is going on. Although the only things I changed in the BIOS were the boot order and the secure boot, the only way to restore internet access to Win 8 is to go into the BIOS and under the Exit menu select "Load Setup defaults (Load default values for all SETUP items.)" I can't find a list of exactly what it is resetting, but afterwards (1.)the wireless (Ralink RT3290) works again in Win8 and (2.)Mint14 is no longer bootable. I hope this information is useful to someone.

srs5694 wrote:Ordinarily, a Linux installation shouldn't affect your ability to use hardware in any other OS on your computer. The Linux installer shouldn't be touching files in the Windows partition. The installer will resize the Windows partition, though, and I suppose it's conceivable that it's doing some damage to the filesystem in the process. A more likely explanation, though, is that the Mint installer is doing something to the boot loader configuration that's interfering with a computer-specific boot loader that's doing some hardware initialization. If the Mint installer removes that hypothetical tool from the boot path, then the OS drivers might not be able to use the hardware.

upcycler wrote:Yes, thank you, I found those, but with no internet access when I am in Linux, how would I download the needed driver? I have no access to another Linux machine (if I did I wouldn't be struggling with this!) For the same reason, no access to the internet, I cannot download the boot repair software either.

Clearly you have some form of Internet access, or you wouldn't be able to post here. Do your file downloading using whatever machine you're using for posting here and then "sneakernet" the files over using USB flash drives or whatever.

upcycler wrote:Although the only things I changed in the BIOS were the boot order and the secure boot, the only way to restore internet access to Win 8 is to go into the BIOS and under the Exit menu select "Load Setup defaults (Load default values for all SETUP items.)" I can't find a list of exactly what it is resetting, but afterwards (1.)the wireless (Ralink RT3290) works again in Win8 and (2.)Mint14 is no longer bootable. I hope this information is useful to someone.

The output of "efibootmgr -v" in both cases might be useful, since that will tell us what (if any) boot loader options have changed. If I'm right that your computer is using a custom boot loader to initialize hardware, that information should enable rearranging a Linux boot loader to boot Windows in a way that will do the same.